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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Lessons from the Oslo incident

I have lived in Oslo for 9 years now and having not experienced something like that before closely (like most Norwegians), I must admit I am quite shocked. The picture above summarizes the human tragedy, which is worth a thousand words. Whilst every human being with reasoning ability and sanity mourns for the tragedy, the media pointlessly try to find who is really behind the attack. Does it really make a difference if the killer(s) are from nation A or B, or support the extreme view X and Y? Lives are lost anyway.

If there is a lesson to be taught out of whatever comes out of investigating this is that lunacy driving by fanaticism has no national, religious or social borders. I realized that as I watched this morning a mother on a bike accompanied her small daughter (also on a bike), wondering freely on the streets of Blindern, a few Kilometers away from the terror scene. Because that is the real value of Norway. It's not its Oil Ministry or Oil Fund, not the Government, not the buildings and shops. It is the people and their open way of leaving. And I am afraid the lunatic(s) targeted the right place.

When the Prime Minister said that he cannot predict how this would change the Norwegian society, he was careful, answering along the lines of the fact that nobody can be a prophet, quite reasonable to understand. However, I hope that Norway would not become a "police state". This is the only worthy privilege that one distinctively gets by living in Oslo. If that is lost, forget the oil fund, all the money in the world and more importantly all the people that are not with us who really worked to preserve it!